People have found a way to cope with pandemic fears: Watching ‘Contagion’

With coronavirus concerns spreading across the U.S., many are looking to thrillers and horror movies for examples of worst-case scenarios and happy endings

By Heather Kelly

March 6, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. EST

A scene from the 2011 film “Contagion,” which features an eerily similar plot to the onset of the coronavirus epidemic. (Claudette Barius/Warner Bros./Everett Collection)

Faced with fear and uncertainty about a dangerous virus spreading quickly and potentially becoming a pandemic, many people are turning to movies and TV shows that depict a dangerous virus spreading quickly and definitely becoming a pandemic.

That’s good news for the streaming services renting out the 2011 thriller “Contagion” by Steven Soderbergh, which on Thursday was the eighth most popular movie in the United States on iTunes. The movie is currently the second most popular film in the Warner Bros. catalog, up from 270th last year. Its newfound popularity coincides with the novel coronavirus being diagnosed in more people around the world and across the country.